Wednesday’s hearing marked the end of the testimony of the civil parties who “gave a human touch to this trial”, said Philippe Linguet, vice-president of the association Entraide et Solidarité AF447, thanking them at the helm. .
Sometimes with a photo, often with a text prepared on a sheet, they recounted the lives of their loved ones, many venting their anger and describing the psychological and professional ravages experienced for more than thirteen years.
“I will always remember that June 1, 2009,” said Lucas on Wednesday, who sometimes has “flashbacks” of it.
“That day I lost my mother, the only one I could have had in my entire life. I’m lucky I still have my father,” continued in a loud, hazy voice. this 19-year-old young man, studying in a top business school.
“This disaster changed my life”, he said, recounting the “loneliness” of his childhood, the feeling of being “different”, that of still living today a mourning “that no one can understand” and which “will never be completed”.
“I am lucky to have the support of my family, my friends, my teachers,” he said. “I hope one day we can tell today’s Lucas and 5-year-old Lucas what happened that day, and how it could have happened.
“I learned about the terrible tragedy through the media, by chance,” recalled Nahim. Whoever lost his brother, his sister-in-law and their two very young children had to “break” the news to his family: “a nightmare”.
“Two years later, we find the cabin. We believe we are going up the slope and then we announce that we have found your brother, but not your sister-in-law or your niece. So we are diving again”, he described.
For his parents, today “it’s very very complicated”, he summed up, speaking of his mother “for thirteen years on anti-depressants”.
“We continue to live, but it’s complicated. There’s not a day when we don’t think about that,” added Nahim, who stressed that, if he takes the plane again, “never” will he cross the border. Atlantic.
– A “cross” for 13 years –
Later, it’s a father, his son and his two daughters, all dressed in black, who stand tightly together to pay homage to Laurence, flight attendant on AF447.
“We loved each other very much, we were very happy together”, declared in particular, very moved, Bruno Badens, the father – the couple had separated “by mutual agreement and smoothly”.
The crash “turned my life upside down,” he said. “I have always been there for (my) children (…) I tried to do well, but I could never replace their mother”.
He explains that he lives not far from the Airbus premises. “I have lived with this cross for 13 years and I am only waiting for one thing: look them in the face and ask their forgiveness,” he said in a vibrant voice.
His son described, in a very colorful story, this day of June 1st. “The naive child that I was, who wanted to become an astronaut (…) this kid also died that day.”
He wanted to “honor (the) memory” of his mother, who “loved us more than anything”, “a woman who radiated class and rare modesty”, “made” for the profession of hostess of the air, who had “worked hard”.
“I was deeply degraded to the depths of my soul by the loss of my mother, but I am even more today in view of the course of this trial”, he got carried away in a final plea.
“I demand an exemplary sanction which will mark the spirits”, he declared, “at the height of the exemplarity to which all these people aspire, for the good of the families, of Airbus, of Air France, and of its employees”.
Since October 10, Airbus and Air France have been tried for manslaughter. The trial is due to end on December 8.